Welcome!

Welcome and thanks for stopping by! Christina Conklin is a natural light portrait photographer specializing in newborns, children and families in the Cypress, TX area. Become a fan of FSP's Facebook Page and you will see your sneak peeks there too, as well as a few extras! It's easy to share your portraits with friends and family this way.

Christina is honored to be a volunteer photographer for The F.I.L.M. Project, gifting free family portraits to families battling cancer.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

(1) Do it during the day! If you can, try to find an angle where you can put your subject in front of the tree but also still have window light falling on your subject's face. You really need that natural light, as opposed to household lighting, if you can. It's so beautiful and clear!

(2) This step is key!! Put your subject far (at least a few feet, if not more) in front of the tree. Do not back them right against it. The farther away your subject is from the background, the blurrier your background will be.

(3) If you have a zoom lens, zoom in all the way. That might mean you have to move your body back farther away from the subject to get them in the frame. Back up if you need to, but use that zoom to its fullest. You're creating more depth of field this way, to get that blurry background we all love.

(4a) Lower your f-stop. You want to make your aperture wide open! If you don't know how to use full manual settings, try this super simple way: Put your camera on the AV setting. Then, use your controls to select the F area on your menu screen. Make that number go as low as it can. For some of you, that may be 1.8. For others it may be higher. It just depends on the lens you have. If yours only stops down to 3.6, 5.0, whatever, that's OK! The smaller the number, the better the blur, but if your lens won't go that low, just rock what you got!

Side note: AV mode lets you control your aperture, but automatically adjusts your other settings for you!

(4b) If you don't want to mess with doing anything manually, you can put your camera on the Portrait setting (sometimes looks like a face). Follow all the other steps, and and your camera will try to create that depth of field on its own. {It's always better to control your camera if you can, though. You're much smarter than it is!} ;)

(5) Now shoot away and check your results! If you feel like your subject's face is too dark, try moving him side to side and watch the light to see where it falls. Try again, and keep making adjustments until you find the perfect look you're going for!

Subscribe To

About Christina Conklin:

I am a natural light portrait photographer specializing in children, family and newborn photography. {I also love senior, engagement and maternity photography!}

I love to capture the honesty of real life, and prefer the simplicity and beauty of outdoor portraits. Sessions are not rushed, and my goal is to have fun, providing you with authentic memories that you will cherish forever.